


family

by JamieGaylePiff



Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-08 08:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21232706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieGaylePiff/pseuds/JamieGaylePiff
Summary: munkustrap in the younger of two siblings. victoria was born in the junkyard. mungojerrie and rumpleteazer are skimbleshanks’ children. jellicles have no reason to scoff and the magical mister mistoffelees.you see, cats are very good at lying.





	1. Chapter 1

munkustrap didn’t remember his brother.

tugger, he knew. of course he knew tugger. he was loud and obnoxious and needy and doted on the kittens. munkustrap knee tugger because tugger was his older brother and he loves him.

there was the other brother, though. macavity. he didn’t remember macavity. he’d been banished in the time between munkustrap’s birth and his eyes opening.

munkustrap did not remember macavity, so when he senses the quartet of foreign cats, he was wary but not hostile.

there was a pair of calicos and a tuxedo, scented similarly enough that they had to be siblings. the fourth was a skittish white queen who hid between the tuxedo and the female calico.

munkustrap was wary but not baleful, so he saw their desperation and smelled the stench of some oppressive male and listened to their pleas for help and he let them into the junkyard. he did not recognize the scent they were doused in. he did not remember his brother.

tugger remembered their brother, though. he was the first to see the four refugees, and tugger—the boring, annoying, curious, and friendly beast—hissed.


	2. Chapter 2

grizabella.

grizabella the glamour cat.

mungojerrie would have liked to be able to say that he had only heard of her. he still could, of course, but it wouldn’t be true, and that made all the difference.

it’d been an age and a half since he’d seen her, of course. she probably didn’t recognize him.

he wondered if the others could see the resemblance.

mungojerrie almost reached out. he almost embraced her, almost shoved her, almost comforted her, almost clawed her. rumpleteazer was at his back, offering support, and mistoffelees’ glare was half contempt, half pity.

grizabella the glamour cat. what a joke.

mungojerrie didn’t reach out. she’d probably forgotten about him already.

he wanted her to have. it would be easier to have a hateful mother than an unprepared one, easier to rationalize. easier to box up the ugly feelings as mutual and call it a day.

he pulled back with a smirk on his face, because he was incapable of complete seriousness, and bile on his tongue, because there wasn’t any joy in the illusory cat’s song.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no emotions here only gay. also no beta and i wrote this in discord which is why its so disjointed

the tortoiseshell cat crept along, for once without his twin. he felt naked without her, almost, but she had a prior engagement and coricopat wasn't one to tear her from it.

his steps were nearly silent as he approached the newcomers' temporary den, and tugger jumped when he appeared. the other tom was keeping guard, and his whipped across the ground like a snake. coricopat would never say that out loud, of course. tugger already looked so much like macavity....

"they're in there?" coricopat asked, not bothering with pleasantries like _hello_ or _sorry i startled you_.

tugger nodded, and added, "be careful. we don't know what they want."

"that's why i'm here, so let me do my job. 

with that, he entered the den and almost hissed at what he saw-smell-sensed.

he saw four cats, like munkustrap had said. two queens, a calico and a cream, and two toms, a blotchy tuxedo and and handsome calico. the white queen was curled into the calico queen, as if trying to become a part of her, while the tuxedo pressed against them both. the other calico had positioned himself between them and the den's opening, despite there being barely enough room to warrant such a thing. (he also saw that the den was one meant to comfortably fit a mating pair--the key word being _pair_.)

he smelled macavity, of course, but that was why he was there. he smelled the four cats that were in the den. three of their scents were similar enough that they had to be siblings, but in such close quarters, coricopat couldn't tell which cat belonged to what smell. he smelled blood and fear, though, and those were never good. especially not combined with macavity.

what he sensed was and wasn't a surprise. he sensed that they needed a tribe, and weren't on any vile mission. he sensed that they were scared in more ways than one: that they needed a tribe to protect them, yes, but also that one of them was hurt. he sensed magic, but that wasn't so uncommon. the surprising part was how deeply powerful it was.

coricopat did not hiss at the story his senses were assaulting him with, though. he had more restraint than that. he turned it into an innocent flick of the ears.

"who're you?"

coricopat turned to the handsome calico tom and could've clawed himself. for all the praise heaped upon his intuition and sensitive abilities, he hadn't considered that the newest Jellicles would actually expect him to talk to them. or that they would ask him questions.

"coricopat," he answered, after a moment too much of hesitation.

"you in charge?"

the tuxedo and the other calico had their eyes fixed on him. the white queen's eyes were closed, ears folded back, and any cat should've been able to tell you that she was the one hurt.

"er, no, that'd be munkustrap. you should have met him already?"

the calico tom froze for a moment until the tuxedo said, "the silver tabby."

"you going to ask our names?" the calico queen asked, and honestly coricopat hadn't been planning on it. simple things escaped him, but not tantomile. they completed each other until they disagreed on something, and then it was just screeching.

"uh, yes? i suppose? what are they."

"rumpleteazer," she said, with a haughty toss of her head that accomplished absolutely nothing. "this beauty right here's victoria," she added, licking the white queen's head.

victoria roused at that, at least, which relieved coricopat just a little.

"mistoffelees," the tuxedo supplied.

"an' i'm mungojerrie," the calico tom finished.

"of course, of course -- rumpleteazer? do you want your mate to get help?"

coricopat _very much_ hoped that rumpleteazer was actually mated with victoria, because otherwise that would have been very embarrassing.

"yes," victoria answered, before rumpleteazer could get a word in. hopefully she wasn't badly injured.

"i'll see what i can do about that," he promised, and slunk out of the den.

tugger sprang up when he saw him, tail lashing and hackles raised.

"that took a _lot_ longer than just sensing for their intentions!" the other cat hissed.

"they asked questions. i answered." coricopat shrugged. "they've no ill intent, by the way. thought you'd want to know. also, victoria, the white queen, is injured and needs medical attention. 

tugger relaxed at his words, so coricopat went on his way to find tantomile and inform her of their new tribe members. their new tribe members, and the handsome calico that was one of them.


	4. Chapter 4

victoria was good at watching without looking like she was watching. munkustrap thought she was turned away from grizabella. he probably thought she didn’t know who the old woman was.

that was true, in a way, victoria supposed. she had no idea why grizabella was shunned by the tribe. she had no idea what had happened between her and demeter.

victoria knew this, though: that grizabella was rumpleteazer’s mother, her mistoffelees and mungojerrie’s. whether she was hated or pitied or forgotten or ridiculed changed from day to day, but the three had never had good things to say about their mother.

excuses weren’t good things. you couldn’t say good things about a person if you didn’t really remember them.

so victoria watched the crone sing, though she didn’t look like she was watching. she couldn’t see mungojerrie or rumpleteazer, but—there was mistoffelees.

he was watching grizabella. not like everyone else, who was turned away. he was watching her, and there wasn’t even enough attachment in his expression to be proper hatred.

jemima started singing, and that was important. victoria gave up the pretense of being turned away. she could feel that deuteronomy’s mind was made up: grizabella would go to the heaviside layer.

jemima had such a beautiful voice, though. best to let her finish.


End file.
